Exploring the lasting fascination with the Byker Wall
Few people are short of an opinion on the Byker Wall and an event is to explore why. Tony Henderson reports
It’s a part of Newcastle dominated by its internationally-known landmark and and an area which has gathered a heap of headlines over the last 50 years.
Now a free event exploring how Byker – and especially the Byker Wall estate - has been documented and represented over those decades will be staged tomorrow (February 6) at Newcastle University’s Farrell Centre.
Owen Hopkins, centre director, says: “The Byker Wall has two lives, as a place where people live their lives fin an everyday world and as a pilgrimage location for visiting architects and creatives and this is a phenomenon we to explore.”
The event, This Was the Future: Byker in Focus is part of the centre’s wider Concrete Dreams project which is examining the major changes in Newcastle in the 1960-70s and their legacy.
Concrete is in short supply at the grade II* listed Byker Wall, the creation of architect Ralph Erskine, who made liberal use of materials such as decorative brickwork and wood.
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The event will feature Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, whose photographs have recorded Byker life and the changes the area has seen.
She is co-founder of the Amber Film and Photography Collective, producer of Byker (1983), a partly dramatised documentary built around Sirkka-Liisa’s images of the terraced housing community, demolished to make way for the Byker Wall.
Between 2003 and 2009, she returned to Byker which she originally documented in the 1970s to concentrate on the Byker Wall Estate, which replaced the terraced streets she had lived in.
At the event from 6pm on Thursday, February 6, Sirkka-Liisa will be joined by Silvie Fisch, associate researcher at the Newcastle University Oral History Collective and director of Northern Cultural Projects, currently developing a Community Archive in Byker.
The line up is completed by James Longfield, architect and director of the Northern Bureau for Architecture. In 2017, he completed a PhD exploring the activities of Ralph Erskine’s team during the redevelopment.
“Few areas of any city have undergone as a comprehensive transformation as Byker in the second half of the 20th century,” adds Owen.
“Demolition of the terraced streets that had defined the area since the late 19th century began in the mid 1960s, with the new estate, including the famous Byker Wall, rising over the following nearly two decades.
“Over that time – and since – Byker has attracted numerous artists, photographers, filmmakers and architects who have explored and in different ways documented the area’s urban fabric and the distinctive culture of the place.
“In this event, we explore how and why Byker has been such a recurring source of interest and inspiration, and the area has been represented across different media and in different contexts.
“How do the images of Byker from the ‘outside’ differ from the ways its perceived by residents past and present?”
The event is free, but placed should be booked via Eventbrite.
There will also be a new installation at the centre, The Fight for Byker and Other Stories, exploring the 1960s work of the Byker Study Group in shaping the development of the estate.
The group lobbied for the right of residents to remain in Byker and they would play a key role influencing its transformation.
This installation explores this pre-development period in Byker’s history and visitors will be invited to contribute to a photo and memorabilia memory wall.
The Byker Estate is an internationally-renowned example of mass social housing, filled with bright colours, wooden panelling, and sheltered by its huge Wall.
It was built between 1969 and 1982, covers 200 acres, and is home to around 9,500 people.
Although existing housing was demolished to make way for the new development some old buildings including pub, churches and swimming baths were retained in the new design.
The estate was built to feature a wide variety of housing types. The Wall, ranging from three to 12 stories high, is the best-known part of the development but there are also low rise and individual houses.
The outer Wall was designed to protect the rest of the development from the wind and traffic pollution - at the time a proposed motorway was due to be built alongside it.
Recently a project, designed to explore the Byker Wall, has been awarded funding from Historic England.
The project, a partnership between housing association Karbon Homes and ELEMENTS Street Art Festival, has received a £14,650 grant from the History in the Making fund which empowers under-represented young people to explore and celebrate their locality and find original ways to commemorate it.
Delivered in collaboration with the specialist youth service Foundation Futures and community partners the Farrell Centre and Northern Cultural Projects, the project will work with young people living on the estate, providing them with a creative opportunity to celebrate Byker’s history, as well as a vision for the future and exploring the past and present of the estate’s design.
The venture will involve local mural and graffiti artist and ELEMENTS festival lead artist MarkOne87 and is a continuation of an ongoing partnership between Karbon Homes and ELEMENTS which has already seen street art boards and murals installed in the community.
Michelle Bell, assistant director of the Byker Community for Karbon Homes said: “The Byker Estate has a unique history that we take great pride in, and with this funding we will be able to bring this to life, whilst also educating and engaging young people on the estate about the history of their neighbourhood - a key part of our Thriving Byker Strategy.”
Karbon Homes and the Byker Community Trust have worked together since 2016, and in April 2021 the ownership and management of 1,800 estate homes came under Karbon’s ownership.